^How about Gaianoi?
No, I have no idea if that's correct.
No, I have no idea if that's correct.
What pet peeves do you have about trek books?
- Thread starter Garm Bel Iblis
- Start date
Sigh. OK.
But that's precisely why I picked it. Because at first glance it looks like the terms are very different. (Yeah, it does nothing to enhance the discussion; it's the way my brain works. I thought it was interesting.)
I rather liked the little pyramid-shaped alien ambassador in "Death's Angel"... until I realised that Hotep was a prominent ancient Egyptian identity.
I rather liked Zod's assumption of "the planet Houston" ("Superman II").
Major characters with unpronouncable names. You know, some alien crewmember with a name like "CCCsscvyyyykf" that appears throughout the entire book.Sometimes I think the writers just shut their eyes and pound their fists on the keyboard to come up with some of these names.
Nah, we just play with Scrabble tiles.
Well, it worked in Sneakers, so why not?
Another cop-out is when they have, say, an alien character who resembles a dolphin or something, and they're from the ocean world of "Dolphina VI."
Well, then you're really going to hate the alien I'm introducing in my Typhon Pact book: Ambassador Scrotus, Federation special diplomatic attache' from the planet Testiculon.
Haha, are they wrinkly skinned creatures with a profusion of hair and a dislike of being kicked?
That's a pretty good idea, actually, since you whittled them down to something readable. Some people don't seem to know how to do that. Timothy Zahn is one of these people, even though I love his stuff. He'll have a name like "Kzkzzaxccckii'zd" or something, and you're like, "Whut?"
It really does make sense that we humans would meet species who call themselves names we can't even begin to pronounce...as much as the apostrophes or strange consonant combinations are jarring for the occasional half-second, I find them strangely comforting. A reminder that I'm really reading sci-fi, if you will. Intriguing and new linguistics are just as interesting as intriguing and new species or planetary systems, IMO.
^That's right. Realistically, alien speech sounds wouldn't translate directly into human phonetics. Any spelling would just be a rough analog. Even "K'chak'!'op" is just a vague approximation of a sound that you'd need a percussionist to reproduce anywhere near accurately.
in my OU fic, humans can't understand the aliens' language.
two races manage to learn English, but one race suffers with speech impediments in English, particularly rolled R's.
and the aliens species names aren't even known in several cases, so they get descriptive names from humans:
The Hive - have a hive-mind.
Al-Cent - from Alpha Centauri.
Cat-Women - humanoid felines with a gender imbalance to females.
Lizard-Men - reptilian humanoids.
Insectoids - guess.
Hawk-Men - humanoid avians.
two races manage to learn English, but one race suffers with speech impediments in English, particularly rolled R's.
and the aliens species names aren't even known in several cases, so they get descriptive names from humans:
The Hive - have a hive-mind.
Al-Cent - from Alpha Centauri.
Cat-Women - humanoid felines with a gender imbalance to females.
Lizard-Men - reptilian humanoids.
Insectoids - guess.
Hawk-Men - humanoid avians.
Another cop-out is when they have, say, an alien character who resembles a dolphin or something, and they're from the ocean world of "Dolphina VI."
Well, then you're really going to hate the alien I'm introducing in my Typhon Pact book: Ambassador Scrotus, Federation special diplomatic attache' from the planet Testiculon.
Oh, so that's where they get Tellurian from! I'd always wondered about that. Thanks for the explanation.
That's a pretty good idea, actually, since you whittled them down to something readable. Some people don't seem to know how to do that. Timothy Zahn is one of these people, even though I love his stuff. He'll have a name like "Kzkzzaxccckii'zd" or something, and you're like, "Whut?"
Generally what I'll do in a case like this is break the word down into something my mind can easily refer to it as. In case of the Kzkzzaxccckii'zd, from the second time on I'd just be pronouncing it in my head as "ka-ZIK-ka-ZACKED." Okay, so I'm missing a few syllables, but I'm still seeing the name the way the author intended, even if I'm not hearing it that way.
The one I've always found a little silly is the Klingon name for Romulans -- "romuluS'ngan." It never made much sense to me why Klingons would use the Federation's name for the Romulan homeworld to identify Romulans.Another cop-out is when they have, say, an alien character who resembles a dolphin or something, and they're from the ocean world of "Dolphina VI."
In my own mind, the Klingons use "rihan'ngan" as their term for Romulans. And Remans would be "havran'ngan."
Why wouldn't they use their own term for Romulans instead of ours or the Romulans' own?The one I've always found a little silly is the Klingon name for Romulans -- "romuluS'ngan." It never made much sense to me why Klingons would use the Federation's name for the Romulan homeworld to identify Romulans.Another cop-out is when they have, say, an alien character who resembles a dolphin or something, and they're from the ocean world of "Dolphina VI."
In my own mind, the Klingons use "rihan'ngan" as their term for Romulans. And Remans would be "havran'ngan."
The Klingons call humans "tera'ngans." So, they're using a word for our planet that derives from one of our own languages as its root. They could use a word from the Romulan language as the root of their word for Romulan, then.
I don't know. I'm not a linguist of any stripe.
I don't know. I'm not a linguist of any stripe.
I'm not sure, but I sort of get the impression from ENT that there wasn't much contact between the Klingons and Romulans prior to the Earth-Romulan War. So the Klingons could've heard about them from humans first, and thus used the human name for them.
I'll add my thanks, because I'd always wondered the same thing!
That's more or less what I'd always assumed, as well.
Late to the thread.
My pet peeve? Trip being brought back, and the idea that it needs to be explained why the tech in TOS is less "shiny" than in ENT. Granted, the last episode of ENT was a horrid piece of TV, but the entire story around Trip surviving and the cover-up is kludgy and obtuse. Martin and Mangels did the best job possible in the directive given, but the editorial mandate and direction for the series just, in my opinion, irks me.
My pet peeve? Trip being brought back, and the idea that it needs to be explained why the tech in TOS is less "shiny" than in ENT. Granted, the last episode of ENT was a horrid piece of TV, but the entire story around Trip surviving and the cover-up is kludgy and obtuse. Martin and Mangels did the best job possible in the directive given, but the editorial mandate and direction for the series just, in my opinion, irks me.
did they actually get to explaining the alledged tech downgrade before Marge got canned?
Her name's Margaret, and she wasn't "canned."
It's addressed in The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing.
